The Stealth Smart Girl

OK, so I've been very lax about keeping this blog, but now that it's summer (though you would never guess it since it's about 50 degrees outside), and I'm not teaching, I'm determined to do it more often. Not only can I get some thoughts out, but hopefully I can work on ideas that will become either an article or the revised conclusion of my book.



Normally I'd start out writing about last night's shows, but the less said about Desperate Housewives' season finale, the better. That was dead boring. Although yay, Chuck has been renewed! Only for 13 episodes, but hey, that has helped a lot of shows really focus, and I don't know what the budget cuts will do, but it's all better than not having the show.

I've written, as anyone reading this blog or who knows me in general may know about the Smart Girl character on television. I've tried to set a boundary between teen shows that took place between 1990 (when Beverly Hills, 90210 began) and 2006, when Gilmore Girls ended. In my dissertation I proclaimed the end of the teen show era after that, but I suppose I was premature.

What may have died out, however, was the brainy girl archetype. Neither Gossip Girl nor the revived 90210 has an Andrea Zuckerman, or even a Rory Gilmore type--driven, book obsessed, school oriented. Useless Vanessa on Gossip Girl is supposed to be a filmmaker, and is clearly intelligent, but is being home schooled (without actually living at home, so it's unclear how that works or actually where she lives at all) so definitely isn't the standard type. She's significantly less well fleshed out as a character than Blair, Serena, or even Jenny. Her job seems to be, for the most part, to be judgmental and to be "good" in the way Dan is. Unlike Blair and Serena, she hasn't mentioned college, so it's not even clear what year she would be if she were in school, or if she already graduated and just plans to make films or what (how's that for ringing academic prose?).














Blair, on the other hand, is what someone I know--and actually I'm sad to say I cannot recall who, so if you are reading this, please speak up,--called a "stealth smart girl." Although the most popular, best dressed, and one of the richer girls in school, she has had perfect grades (although I don't believe we've ever seen her study), and a high (if unmentioned) SAT score and earned entry into Yale. She isn't going to Yale, due to some bad actions on her part and because of ifwesendourcharactersawayhowwilltheshowcontinueitis, and may end up at NYU. Still a good school. Like Rory Gilmore, getting into the Ivy League (in the pilot Rory says Harvard, but later obsesses over Yale, which is much closer to Stars Hollow and from which she graduates), has been presented as Blair's be all and end all, along with becoming Audrey Hepburn (a goal after my own heart). It will remain to be seen how the story treats her at NYU, or whether it becomes Columbia after all (it would have made more sense to send Nate to NYU and Blair to Columbia), but it will be interesting to see if they have school challenge Blair.

The season finale is tonight and I'm "unspoiled" but I'm guessing Serena's recent arrest is what will torpedo her going to Brown. She's never been school oriented and it wouldn't be surprising or terrible if next year she didn't go to college but modelled or something instead. The final girl on that show is Jenny, who won't be ready for college for at least one more year (maybe two--these shows are so vague). As a fashion designer she is outside the realm of the "smart girl" no matter what her grades, which have never been mentioned--she is instead an artsy girl.

90210 also didn't include such a character. Andrea Zuckerman's daughter Hannah was introduced in the pilot as the anchor for the school TV news show Navid runs, but was barely seen and has never been mentioned again. Annie is the good girl, and the actress, but is much more Brenda than Andrea, only tons more annoying. Even when the world hated Brenda, Shannen Doherty was tons more convincing and good in the role than Shenae Grimes. Anyhow, as PK (Principal's kid), it seems likely Annie gets good grades, but we've seen no evidence of her stressing over anything other than boys and whether she's the lead in the school show or not. Silver is the blogger (like all smart people are), but mostly the rebel with problems and actress and druggie Adrianna and popular/bitchy Naomi are far from school oriented. So far no one is a stealth smart girl, but any of them could turn out to be a genius.

Friday Night Lights also didn't have such a character. Coach's daughter Julie is shyer than the other girls, but not flamboyantly brainy. Lyla got into Duke, but was more into cheerleading, then Christianity, and later boyfriend Tim than school while Tyra was the classic underachiever who ultimately did get into college, but through a great deal of struggle.


Finally, there is The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Unfortunately for me, despite having just completed a season, this will be back in July and I'm sure I will watch every minute of the total train wreck this show is. This show alone might include the brainy girl in the lead, Amy. She plays the French horn and, until shortly before the show began was of the "never been kissed" variety of girl I discuss in my sex chapter. However, by the time the show starts, not only has she been kissed, she is pregnant. Although frequently referred to by the actual words "smart girl" we never see her do anything particularly brainy, and in fact she, and most of the cast, come off as quite dim. An interesting character, however, is Adrian, a very stealth smart girl. Although clearly the sex pot (she sleeps with the father of the baby, another girl's boyfriend, and her new stepbrother), she is also determined to do well in school. She will admit it, but even her friends (and she starts off wanting few) are surprised to discover her devotion to school.

So, what does the stealth smart girl mean? Does this mean that braininess is now a less outsider characteristic? Given that some of these shows actually have characters of color (though Gossip Girl only does as recurring characters, including an Asian girl with gigantic glasses, and 90210 and Friday Night Lights have had only boys of color), is that enough? Are we supposed to see all the characters as so well integrated that they don't need obvious signs of smartness as glasses or huge piles of books around them? I'm not sure, but it's something I want to think about this week.

Top Chef Spoiler ahead. Lost too.

I know, I've been neglecting this blog since the beginning of the year. I have real problems with February. It used to at least be sweeps month and so everyone on TV would be getting married or having babies or dying, but it isn't really working that way anymore (I read somewhere it's now in March but I suspect it will be applied inconsistently). I'm actually feeling a real deflation after the Oscars, too. Plus it snowed again last night, and it's cold, and I've had enough.

But I figured I would write anyhow because the whole point was to instill some writing discipline, and anyhow with February nearly over, Spring can't be too far behind. Right? So here are some tulips.

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN TOP CHEF

Carla didn't win Top Chef. She didn't even come close, since she took her "sous chef"'s (a past runner up, from a season I didn't watch) advice to turn a bleu cheese (the only grouping of cheese I've ever tried that I just don't like) custard into a souffle, and fried it by forgetting to turn the oven down. Something I would totally do, but I'm not in the running for Top Chef. Also she sous-vided her steak and made it too tough. I guess I won't be trying that as a good steak is among my favorite things. Stephan also didn't win, and as much as I don't care for him, I like him much better than I like Hosea, who is boring and uncreative apparently, because I was let down. You'd think I'd want the Jewish guy to win if the woman didn't, which is my normal Jeopardy selection method, but not so.

Lost was interesting, though I'm not sure what we learned. We were pretty sure Ben was evil, and now we know at least at minimum he'd kill a man in cold blood (but we knew that from "the purge" and his general attitude towards anyone who isn't a main character). What we don't really know is why just the mention of Eloise Hawking made him turn from begging Locke not to kill himself, to finishing the job himself. Widmore came off as a good guy, but we still don't know. We do have confirmation that that space in Tunisia is "the exit." How'd they get rid of the polar bear skeleton? Did the sand eat it away? I don't know how you'd dispose of such a thing. A museum? I guess that was three years prior to Locke popping out there.

New characters seem OK--at least one new woman who is probably Israeli, or at least Jewish since her name is Ilana (the name of one of my cousins) an ethnicity sorely lacking on this show so far, and a man named Caesar who seems Middle Eastern, but who knows? They saw Hurley and others "disappear" yet landed on the island and found Locke, who was flying in cargo in a coffin (an un-nailed shut coffin, which bothered me at the butcher shop, and on the plane--wouldn't it just fly open?), but is clearly alive again.

I've given up on Heroes and Life on Mars since I last wrote, Monk and Psych are done for the season, and Top Chef has only next week's reunion. Reaper will be back, in 90210's slot (I think that may be moving to 9, but not for at least three weeks), so I guess I'll watch it but don't really care. Big Love has gotten excellent, United States of Tara is intriguing enough and I'm caught up "On Demand"-wise with Six Feet Under (I guess I'm through season 3) and The Sopranos (through episode 7--shows I already saw years ago but forgot). I could rent either on Netflix, and just might, but I'm kind of enjoying doling them out slowly. The Wire is back with episode 1, too, and I could watch that too. We'll see how much snow there is and how bored I get.

So realistic

Girl Who (Doesn't) Wear Glasses of the day/week/month

Gossip Girl's Nelly Yuki.

She started off as the girl that was going to keep Blair from getting into Yale, because she was prepared to get perfect SAT's but Blair drafted her into her little mean girls group. Somehow this year she's on probation and we're supposed to see her as a wannabe. It's pretty sad because she seemed pretty cool--Lane Kim without the rock and roll, so not all that cool--but she's taking Jenny's place as the main wannabe. Anyhow, since Blair may get top grades but doesn't fit the smart girl paradigm, and Jenny is more the artist, and Serena just drifts through life and clearly doesn't care about much besides her family, friends, and love life, Nelly is the closest thing to a retro smart girl there is on this show. It would be nice to think she'll break out of her mold in a good way, but as a very minor character I think she's doomed to be the stereotype and eventually disappear as the gang goes off to college. She's got more personality than the original Asian girl on this show at least.

I really don't think the writers of The Secret Life of the American Teenager have never met any teenagers. Or any adults. Or anyone who has ever been to high school or might eventually go. No one on this show does anything at all that resembles anything I, personally have ever done in my life, or anything that anyone I've ever met, heard of, or read about has actually done. No one gets married at 15 using fake IDs to a boy who isn't even the father. No one moves into the garage when his wife kicks him out. No one starts off making pancakes and ends up in a queen-sized bed in said garage with his ex. No one has meetings between the police, the high school counselor, and students accused of making fake IDs, or between the counselor and not-really-married-students-because-it-isn't-really-legal-with-a-fake-ID with the door open, and the "wife" would never really walk past at the most inopportune moment. No one (at least no one sane) wants to be "the girl being cheated with, instead of cheated on." No one runs into your ex's ex's current husband at the divorce lawyer and has a lengthy conversation with him that is the first time she finds out her 15 year old daughter is "married."

The only thing that did ring slightly true was that when I faulted Josie Bissett last week for not calling her ex when she heard about the wedding, it turns out she hadn't bothered to ask whose wedding, so she didn't know it was Amy and Ben's. So I suppose she's slightly off the hook for that as she did pick up the phone as soon as she found out. And clearly Amy wanting to find a way out of having to go to school, work, and take care of a baby does make sense, but not this way. The really awful part is that apparently real tweens thing this show is "so realistic" and don't think Ben is a creepy stalker and for all I know probably think Ricky the sexually confused Lothario is "so cute!"

Of course, also, no one leaves their 17-year old son in charge of a multi-billion dollar company, especially their 17-year old son who has never worked a day in his life (I don't think running his burlesque club really counts), especially at said company and probably doesn't even know what the company does, since I don't, or with a planned mentoring/training system or anything like that, and no one is suprised when he fails spectacularly, but that's Gossip Girl and I doubt teens think that show is realistic. They all act like they're at least 30, and just happen to drop into school every once in a while to keep up with their social lives.

I also watched the end of Masterpiece Classic's "Tess of the D'urbervilles." Thomas Hardy sure seemed to hate men. There isn't a good one in the bunch. I'd be interested in reading about the various controversies, but don't have time at the moment. Too much TV to get to. Oh, and work, too.

Which one of you bitches is my father?

Girl Who Doesn't Wear Glasses of the Day/Week/Month (I haven't decided that yet)

This will be a new feature, in which each time I post (if I have time and can think of one), I come up with a smart girl or woman who embodies some of the characteristics of the brainy girls I discuss in my dissertation-cum-hopefully-to-be-a-book-someday. Everybody needs a gimmick, right?

Anyhow today's Girl is Rita, whose real name is Susan, from the movie Educating Rita, played by Julie Walters. I had ER, which I've seen about 10 times, on in the background while I read my Sunday New York Times and did the crossword, of course, in ink, and then later watched Mamma Mia, which I hadn't even realized co-starred Walters. I actually watched that twice, as I had to watch with the director's commentary. I always learn something from doing that.

Rita--a lower class hairdresser-- starts off simply wanting to learn, but is very unlike the "smart girl." By the end she has left her husband, turns down romantic offers from both her don and a good looking fellow students, and ends up passing her Oxford exams with high distinction. Evidently she analyzes works of literature very well, although I haven't read most of what she talks about, except for Rubyfruit Jungle, which is a pretty terrible book. It never occured to me in previous viewings (unless it did, and I forgot, which is likely) that her going back to the name Susan was because she realized, after reading everything else, that RJ is a terrible book. It's also a book about lesbianism, though, and it's interesting that that is not a theme at all in the movie.

In the end, she walks down an airport concourse alone, much as Jill Clayburgh walks alone in An Unmarried Woman and Goldie Hawn walks alone in Private Benjamin. I once wrote a paper in undergrad about those two films and how they were both stories of "JAPS" who became emancipated. Rita isn't Jewish, though, or princessy at all, so if I did write a paper about the three, it would have to be quite different. But I don't plan to. Hail Rita!

Desperate Housewives never seems to provide me with much to say. It's just sort of there, occasionally intriguing, but mostly comforting. There isn't a single girl without glasses on it now that Julie is gone, but I'll keep watching. It does mean I taped Tess of the D'urbervilles on Masterpiece Classic again, so I have both episodes on TiVo, but won't get to it for a while as it's Oscar season. Every year at this time I try to see most of the movies that will probably get nominated for an Oscar, but since I didn't see any on the holiday, it might be hard as I now have just over 2 months and most of them are only playing in Albany and won't be on DVD until after the ceremony.

Colin Ferrell won a Golden Globe for In Bruges last night (I only saw the last 30 minutes of the show so I didn't see his speech), and I did see that, but that was "musical or comedy" which Oscar tends to ignore. I didn't much like that movie, but he was very good in it. I hope I don't have to see The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke won Best Actor in a Drama for that. The Globes are weird and fake, though. I'm seeing Synechdoche, NY on Friday, I'll get The Dark Knight from Netflix this week, and obviously Slumdog Millionaire is the one to see if I can only see a few.

I did see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button this weekend. Mostly it was long. Long and slow. I'm sure it will deservedly win a lot of technical awards, but I wasn't blown away by Brad Pitt's acting, even if he did play all the face roles (except at the end as a little kid) while CGI took care of the bodies. Frankly I was more impressed with Cate Blanchett's ability to make me believe she was 20.

Mamma Mia--well they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble and a lot of singing if Sophie had just asked "OK, which one of you bitches is my father." It was OK, but I've never cared much for ABBA and clearly no one could do any math at all when they wrote or cast this, as Meryl is way too old to be Amanda Seyfried's mom, especially if she was supposed to be young and naive when she got pregnant. It's one thing to sleep with three men when you're 20, another when you're around 40 as she, and most of the men would have been. I just looked it up. Meryl will be 60, Pierce Brosnan 56, Colin Firth 49, and Stellan Saarsgard 58 this year. Ah, fantasy. Anyhow Walters is an author in it, so she carries on the Girls Who Don't Wear Glasses tradition, except she actually wears them.

Deliciously random

Not a lot to say today.

Last night was Ugly Betty and 30 Rock. Ugly Betty was just learning a little sophistication at work, despite the protest of her family, but was wildly punished for it when her dad had a heart attack while she had her phone on mute at a party. I'm not sure what lesson she can learn here, and still actually move up. Is she supposed to decide to be happy to be an assistant? She did learn that schmoozing with a caterer has value, but that schmoozing with a fellow heavy girl did not and was in fact detrimental. While she wasn't dressed much better than she usually is, at least she didn't make my eyes bleed and her fucschia coat was actually cute and looked nice with the yellow bag. The blouse/dress with floppy bow was pretty bad, though.

30 Rock is just so deliciously random. I laughed out loud several times in a way I only seem to, when home alone, during 30 Rock and The Office, and even the latter hasn't caused that much lately. Can I recall any dialogue? No, except for Jenna singing "take a little bit of my lung" which wasn't too funny--it was just the delivery, and the fact that Jack said he wrote it. Salma Hayak seemed to fit right in, too.

I'm also halfway through a book, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller. It's very interesting, though the writing style is a little breathless and the research seems kind of random--mostly she's interviewed old friends of the women who may or may not still be friends. She also repeats herself a lot and defines some stuff that I personally do not need defined, but most importantly it really needs to come with a soundtrack. So far I know most of the songs mentioned, either by these three or by their peers or inspirations, but soon I won't and I can't remember enough of the words. It's tempting to download some stuff, but first I'll see what friends of mine have. Someone's gotta have Tapestry. It's actually Carole King that interests me the most, as I just love the movie Grace of My Heart, which is loosely based on her life and includes great music not actually from the period, but similar by people like Elvis Costello. Evidently the main truly amazing song in the film, "God Give Me Strength" which I have on CD but by sung by Elvis, not the woman Illeana Douglas lip syncs to, is not even on the soundtrack, but only on an album that has a bunch of songs I don't want and costs $70. Some day I'll find it, though.

Something is Not Right

Ah, I've always looked better in black.

90210 was . . . itself last night, which was to say not at all very good and not even laughably bad, just sort of dull and pointless. Brenda and Kelly still look weird, though when I thought Brenda might be dying I'll admit to a pang (she wasn't), and announced to the cats that they couldn't kill off Brenda, of all people. Somehow that would ruin the canon of the original show. I've been having a lot of the reruns lately on in the background while I work at home, and it's funny how it just doesn't matter what season it is, I know what's happened and what's about to happen within minutes. But the weekday shows are in the 7th or 8th season when the show got really dark and sort of dull and Donna with the mocha colored hair and Kelly spent a lot of time bleating, so it's not as big a contrast between the original and the new as it could be. Anyhow on the new show Annie is still incredibly annoying and should probably switch places with the younger sister on Secret Life of the American Teenager, the only one on that show I actually like.

Annie had INTUITION, which they learned about in school (who needs to learn that in school?), and squinted, as Daniel Drennan, the original BH90210 recapper would have written, real hard, while figuring out ,and then letting her folks in on the fact that, "something is not right" (as Madeline's headmistress, Miss Clavel, would have said) with the mysterious new son her dad never knew he had who took off with $200,000 of Naomi's mom's money, which she can ill afford now that she's getting divorced. Adrianna might have gotten AIDS while she was using, but was given a clean bill of health--do they no longer tell you about the ten year incubation period, and retesting and all that? But she is pregnant--and Brenda can't have children and wants to adopt . . . gee, I wonder what will happen. And the worst part is that Grandma Bluth said she wanted to go back to work, which I fear means we'll have a lot less Jessica Walter, who I know has been domoted and is one of the few things that makes this show tolerable.

I don't love Scrubs, and from all accounts Zach Braff is a big ass, but the critic I read was right and they really did seem to have a new vitality on the two episodes last night on their new network ABC. The caustic new intern "Jo" is fun, and it was very sweet to see JD and Turk usher Glynn Turman's character into death. Even if it meant they missed steak night, which sounded pretty fun. Courteney Cox, however, looks way to skinny, her hair is stringy, and she wasn't very funny. I don't think she's permanent though, as Ken Jenkins is still on the show.

I've also been watching, from Netflix, original SNLs. I still love Gilda Radner, but the shows vary a lot based on the hosts. Candice Bergen--funny. Lily Tomlin--funny. Robert Klein, not so much. They're getting into a groove, but are still trying things like having the hosts interact a bunch with the musical guests which I'm glad they haven't done since. ABBA lipsyncing on the deck of the Titanic was mildly funny. Loudon Wainright lookedawfully young and I've seen the first two "Land Shark" sketches, which hold up well, and the first appearance of Emily Littella. Of course, I don't think it really gets good until they get rid of Chevy Chase, who Jane Curtin once said was "probably out kicking a puppy or something," and bring in coolest man on the planet Bill Murray, but that will take a lot more disks and I have lots of other stuff to see first.

Happy New Year

It's my first post of the New Year. I've not been posting, in large part because many of my shows were on hiatus for the holidays. Many I watch will continue to be so. I know we're still due three more Pushing Daisies, and Dirty, Sexy Moneys, but the last I heard the rumor was these would be burned off, presumably on single Saturdays. NBC won't be showing Chuck or Heroes this month, starting its policy of all reality (or Jay Leno) all the time. On the other hand, Monk, Psych and The Secret Life of the American Teenager (unfortunately) are back, with Greek, Lost, and I think Big Love not far off, plus the ABC premiere of Scrubs and eventually the new Cupid, which I know I'll check out, and Dollhouse eventually, so I'll probably be watching pretty much my normal amount of TV, and presumably my new students won't watch any of these shows so I'll still be out of step.

It's amazing how much I can read when TV is not demanding my time, and I am not wrecking my eyesight all day on the Internet. I read five and a half books on my trip: Youth in Revolt , which was good and Bonk, which was very funny, both of which I got for my sister, When Will there Be Good News?, nicely British and enjoyable but forgettable, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which was very interesting and informative as novels go, gifts for my mom, half of A History of the World in 6 Glasses (got through all of beer and cola and most of wine), which I got for my dad, and wouldn't mind finishing at Borders someday, and Interred with Their Bones--bought at the San Francisco airport--sort of a mix of Possession, a book I love, and The DaVinci Code, a book I thoroughly hated. Of course there's going to be another book starring the same main character who serves as literary detective. If I wrote novels, that's what I'd focus on. I'm reading one more now--much more embarrasing, bought when exhausted at the Charlotte airport where I had a three hour layover: Trading Up by Candice Bushnell. Interred had a big allusion to Don Quixote, and the Charlotte airport bookstore had two copies with lovely Picasso covers, but I was just too tired to concentrate. As it happened Interred lasted until 10 minutes before landing, which is odd as Youth in Revolt did the same thing but was 100 pages longer, a bigger sized book, and I only had a 40 minute layover. Go figure.

Last night was a typically histrionic Gossip Girl. Chuck made me think of fun words like louche and dissolute as he smoked hash in the school lobby and was pleasured by two women at once at the once-again-his-Victrola burlesque club (the slow motion stage show was pretty gross, though). I'm not sure I'm liking Blair's whole self-sacrificing routine, but I'm glad she was there for him and these two really pep up the scene. For the first time I missed Nate, though, as he should have been part of the Chuck rescue along with Blair and Serena. Once again I didn't miss Vanessa. The Jenny/Erik story was mildly interesting but basically dumb. As usual, no one cares about Dan and Serena and even though I don't care about her, she can do so much better. Since I'm going to be writing about the retro sensibility of 90210, I think it's interesting that this show embraces 40s styles, timeless preppiness (though it was making fun of a Junior League type group last night), and the mean girl ethos of the 1990s, yet we've never seen anyone announce he was smoking hash TV (as opposed to pot) or have a teen character mired in Thai sex clubs--and we'll just forget that those girls are probably sex slaves. If I think too much about this I'll have to really hate Chuck Bass and I don't want to.

In any case, it's an actually fun show, unlike The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which is just plain ludicrous. For reasons I still don't understand--not sure if it was the network, or my misbehaving TiVo, but everything's fine now--after the first sequence, the sound completely disappeared. I always have the closed captioning on so I just kept watching but I can't imagine the dialogue or story could have been improved with sound and am not sure if it made it worse. It's still impossible to know when this show is trying to be funny and when it's being unintentionally hillarious, or when it's just insane, but I got to/had to watch two fifteen years olds and everyone in their age range (14-16 I think, plus however old Grace's autistic brother is) they know get fake IDs so they could either a. get married, b. witness the marriage, or c. have drinks at the nonexistent reception, even if they don't drink or their friends/girlfriends convinced them not to drink because "drinking stinks." And somehow the autistic brother got a girlfriend who didn't look autistic, but did seem crazy. Voice tone might have given me some indication. Anyhow, surprise, TiVo's description for next week says they find out the marriage isn't legal. Ya think? And why Ben and Amy ignored the huge red flag of her once happy parents fighting, or why Grace's mom, who was once married to Amy's dad and knew the kids were going to a wedding, or the bad girl's mom who had an affair with Amy's dad, didn't have the courtesy to tell Amy's dad, jerk that he is, I do not know. I'm not happy about this show continuing and I'm baffled and upset that it's up against Gossip Girl (though fortunately since it's on cable there are subsequent airings right after), much as I'm pissed they're putting House against Chuck, no doubt sealing the latter's demise.